


I might be driven to sell your love for peace (I do not think I would)

by prettyasadiagram



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 09:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2223267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyasadiagram/pseuds/prettyasadiagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Last year for his birthday he’d come home to Jim, candles, rose petals, and caviar. The curtains caught on fire and the caviar was awful. Bones is a bit scared to find out what Jim has planned this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I might be driven to sell your love for peace (I do not think I would)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thatdamneddame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamneddame/gifts).



> For the lovely thatdamneddame: happy birthday, lady! I feel like this isn't on the same level as 7k of Bucky/Steve HS au, but it will have to do.
> 
> On a related note, I almost titled this “to the fella over there with the hella good hair,” but then I realized that it was after midnight and I should reconsider.
> 
> Any typos or errors are mine. Feel free to point them out.

There are some things, Bones admits, that Jim does well. Keeps his promises, holds his liquor, drags Bones out of bottles of whiskey when necessary. But, and this is a very large caveat, Jim is simply incapable of taking him at his word when he says that all he needs or wants for his birthday, for Christmas, for any holiday that has a day on the calendar, is a night in, a quiet night with Jim and food. That’s all.

Since Jim somehow interprets that as “No, I am self-sacrificing and an idiot; please, Jim, prove how much you love me,” to date, Bones has ended up caroling across campus, politely trying to get three lovely strippers to leave his hallway before his landlord checks out all the noise, and been tricked into fancy dress no less than four times. Of course, these all end in some variation of them naked in bed (or a storage closet or library stack), so he can’t complain too much. 

 

///

 

When Bones comes home from his shift, tired from answering the same intern questions over and over again, all he wants to do is crash on his bed and sleep approximately forever, but the first thing he notices is Jim fucking Kirk sprawled out on his bed like he’s escaped from some goddamn GQ photo shoot. The look Jim gives him from under his lashes is almost enough to make him willing to listen to whatever plans Jim has, but then he remembers how he’s been on his feet for sixteen hours and the same student asked three times and for three separate patients how to do a nasal intubation, and he wants to cry.

“No, Jim, whatever you’re about to say, don’t.” Bones throws his bag to the floor and collapses next to Jim. With his face muffled in the pillow, he says, “I want to _sleep_.”

Jim just laughs and cards his hands through Bones’s hair. Bones tries to make himself roll over and be stern, impress upon Jim the utter seriousness of his need for sleep, but Goddammit, kid’s got the hands of angels, and he drifts off with Jim rubbing small circles into the nape of his neck.

 

///

 

He wakes to snores and a wet patch on his shoulder, but Jim is next to him, solid and warm, and Bones takes a moment to be grateful he’s off today. He doesn’t want to break this moment. Jim is never still, never lets Bones take a second (unless he steals it when Jim is focused on work or grilling or beating the next level of Donkey Kong) just to watch and wonder at him. 

And Jim says Bones has no romance in his soul.

Bones shifts a little closer, tightens his arm around Jim’s waist, and falls back into sleep.

 

///

 

The scent of coffee wakes him next, that and the fact that his left shoulder is unforgivably cold. Jim has left behind a still-steaming mug of coffee and a note filled with horrifyingly sappy observations about how Bones smacks his lips in his sleep and how he is turning thirty-one next week and they need to celebrate.

He rolls over to stare at the ceiling. Last year for his birthday he’d come home to Jim, candles, rose petals, and caviar. The curtains caught on fire and the caviar was awful. He’s a bit scared to find out what Jim has planned this time.

 

///

 

Because Jim can’t be trusted to go grocery shopping alone, Bones usually takes on the task. That doesn’t mean he likes it, but in the Bones–Kirk household, there are certain unspoken divisions of labor. He does the grocery shopping—because otherwise they would both have cavities and vitamin deficiencies within a month—and handles financial responsibilities and Jim, well. Bones knows that Jim doesn’t have the sense God gave horses, but he does have the incredibly necessary skill of not screaming like a six-year-old when confronted with roaches or abnormally large spiders that audibly go _crunch_ when stepped on. 

As he stares at the cereal options and tries to decide between Honey Bunches of Oats and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, his mind is still on the innocuous note Jim left this morning. And so, as he usually does when he’s concerned that Jim is about to do something ridiculous, Bones calls Uhura. 

“What,” Uhura answers. Bones doesn’t take it personally. If his relationship with Jim were a professional one instead of personal, he’d probably have that same dead tone in his, too. 

“Has Jim made any comments about mariachi bands, strippers, exotic mushrooms, or anything otherwise alarming in the last week?” Bones asks.

There’s a long silence. “He wondered if renting twenty kittens was feasible and/or cost effective. Does that count as alarming?”

Bones sighs. “Yeah, just a bit. Thanks.” How to subtly remind Jim that he is, in fact, allergic to cats has now become no. 1 on the agenda for tonight. 

He goes with Cinnamon Toast Crunch because he’ll probably need the sugar in the upcoming week. 

 

///

 

That night Bones casually says, “You know, I don’t expect anything big this year, right? Just, I don’t know—a bottle of that whiskey we tried last month. No caviar this year, please,” and then he launches into how one of the intern’s cats made him break out in hives just last week.

Jim hums and nods appropriately, and then launches himself at Bones and sticks his hand down his pants. Bones gives a mental sigh before turning his attention to getting Jim’s pants off. Business as usual when Jim is trying to distract him. 

 

///

 

Spock calls the next day and, with absolute despair in his voice, asks Bones his thoughts on petting zoos and mimes, and Bones can’t even answer. He hangs up and hopes that Jim is just winding him up. 

Two hours later, he gets a text from Jim asking what he has against precious baby goats. He’s asking for science reasons, obviously.

In between re-explaining basic procedures to med students, Bones politely and with limited profanity tries to convey that if Jim takes him anywhere involving goats, he will leave Jim there to be stomped on by their tiny precious hooves and be covered with tiny, precious, hoofmark bruises. 

The response is mostly emoticons. Bones ignores it and goes on to inadvertently make a student cry while he’s distracted with what Jim might be planning. Chapel gives him dirty looks for the rest of the day, and he ends up pulling the student aside and, over a cup of coffee, telling her the story of how he accidentally turned a patient orange during his time as a student. She laughs, and Bones feels a bit better. 

 

///

 

Jim is in the kitchen when Bones is finally done with paperwork and has dragged himself home. “Hooked on a Feeling” is playing and Jim is doing a little hip twist thing that looks truly ridiculous, and Bones feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest. It’s like his worst heartburn met some butterflies and decided they were meant to be. There might be actual hearts in his eyes and he’s going to be a medical anomaly. 

And then Jim turns and, God help him, but not even Jim’s truly obscene leer, complete with an eyebrow waggle, can ruin this moment for Bones. The only recourse is to kiss him before Jim realizes just how absolutely and utterly gone over him Bones is. 

The chili, when they finally return to it hours later, is delicious. 

 

///

 

For his actual birthday, Jim wakes him up with wandering hands and morning breath, and it’s basically the best present Bones could have asked for. 

All this to say that the large assortment of balloons arriving at work shouldn’t really be a surprise, and yet. They’re pink and purple, wishing him a “Happy 6th Birthday,” and Bones is absolutely going to kill Jim.

Chapel laughs and takes a picture and his med students giggle at him for the rest of the day. By three, Bones has locked himself in his office with paperwork and coffee and is bitterly hoping that Jim hasn’t procured goats from somewhere.

 

///

 

He’s expecting something outrageous and irritating; something that he’ll have to grin and bear while Jim beams happily like Bones’s pained face is all he has ever wanted in life. What he gets, though, is Spock and Uhura, lasagna and wine, and, best of all, no livestock. 

 

(The birthday sex later that evening is, as usual, spectacular.)

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not repost this work in its entirety or share this work on third-party websites such as Goodreads.


End file.
